


I Win When I Lose

by Dresupi



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Awesome Darcy Lewis, BAMF Darcy Lewis, Conflict of Interests, Darcy Lewis is the Avengers' PR Manager, F/M, Innuendo, Kissing, POV Darcy Lewis, Steve Rogers has a Potty mouth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22244773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dresupi/pseuds/Dresupi
Summary: Steve's asked Darcy out no less than a thousand times, but each time, she has to say no because of that dreadedconflict of interests.  He would never ask her to quit, so he finagles a solution himself.Or:The one where Steve wants it all, and Darcy's only too happy to give it to him.
Relationships: Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers
Comments: 36
Kudos: 303
Collections: Dresupi's Mamma Mia Prompts, Dresupi's Shieldshock Fics





	I Win When I Lose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Artemis_Day](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis_Day/gifts).



> For my Mamma Mia Prompts, Artemis_Day prompted: Shieldshock with Waterloo

Steve came into the office around 9:43 that morning. It wasn’t that Darcy was waiting for him, because she definitely _wasn’t_ , but she could tell it was him because her receptionist made that noise he always made when confronted with the premier Beefcake of America. 

“Guhhhhhhhhhow can I help you, sir?”, Charles slurred, still in the middle of a phone call with their spring water company, unless he’d hung up on them when Steve walked through the door. 

Either option was entirely possible, Darcy knew from experience. 

She heard the low rumble of Steve’s voice, but not what he said because his back was to her door. 

“Just come on back, hon. Give poor Charles a break. He’s gonna need a minute to collect himself,” Darcy called, unable to stop her polite smile from spreading into a grin when Steve turned around and put all of his attention on her. 

“Sorry, is my presence that much of a distraction?” he asked as he shut her door, taking a seat in one of the two chairs in front of her desk. They were normally reserved for clients, and while Steve _was_ one of her clients, this felt distinctly like a social call. 

She kind of hated how Steve always slid into situations looking like he belonged there. She supposed it was his military training, gave him a fallback of approved motions he could work through, be it a black-tie occasion or coming up to try and again ask out a woman who had turned him down four times. 

And it wasn’t like Darcy _wanted_ to turn him down either. Because if this had been any other situation, she’d have said yes in a nanosecond. Pre-emptively even. 

But the truth of the matter was, she was in the precarious situation of being his PR agent. And all the rest of the Avengers too. And she was pretty sure there was a conflict of interest involved. 

Not pretty sure. 

_Absolutely_ sure. 

Because she’d looked through every book she had, searched online, even asked Maria Hill herself, and had come up with the same answer all around. 

_It’s a conflict of interest, you can’t pinch that booty, no matter how star-spangled it is. It’s America’s ass, not Darcy Lewis’s._

She took a seat in her desk chair and crossed her legs. She’d worn the four-inch pumps and the flowy skirt today, so it showed off a tasteful amount of thigh that made Steve gulp a little even though he kept his eyes (mostly) on hers and (maybe just a fraction of a second, he was enhanced, he could probably sneak a peek and not let on, right?) not on what her legs were doing. 

Okay, so what if he looked? Darcy wasn’t about to go tattle on him. 

She bounced her leg and cleared her throat, her polite smile settling back onto her face as she folded her hands across her knee. “What’s up, Steve? We don’t have an appointment as far as I know…” Reaching up to pull her glasses down over her eyes, she made a big show of looking at her phone and checking her schedule that she knew was clear. She didn’t have anything on the books until Clint came in after lunch. 

“No, I just… wanted to come in. To talk. Maybe we could go to lunch? Talk some more?” 

“This on the books?” Darcy asked, pushing her glasses back up on top of her head. 

“No, doesn’t have to be…” Steve replied, smirking a little. 

Pressing her lips together, she shook her head. “Steve, I told you before… it’s a conflict of--” 

“Interest. I know already,” he finished for her. “But I was wondering, it’s the fact that you’re my PR Agent that makes the conflict, right?” 

She nodded. “Pretty sure I told you that the last few times you asked me to one of your ‘not-strictly-on-the-books’ one-on-one events…” 

“Dates, Darcy. Call a spade a spade. I asked you out.” 

“Fine,” she continued. “The last time you asked me out, I told you it couldn’t happen.” 

“That’s the only thing keeping you from saying yes?” 

“I can’t answer that,” she said with a sniff, refusing to meet his gaze. If she met those eyes of his, he’d be able to see into her soul and know that she was without a doubt, over the moon for a certain Captain. She was halfway to quitting her job and giving in any way. America’s ass or no, she wanted to give it more than a little squeeze and maybe squeeze some other things as well. 

But then, she’d remember everything she did to get this degree and start her own firm and she’d chill again. No star-spangled piece of ass was worth her job. No sir. 

“I’m going to go out on a limb and jump for it, then,” he replied. “Because I talked to Director Fury and if I fire you as my agent, and hire my own outside agent, then we can talk a little more discreetly…” 

Darcy’s eyes flew open. She made an indignant sound, not unlike a squawk. “You’re going to fire _me_?” She brought her hand up to her chest. “I’m offended, sir. I was chosen by Director Fury to be your--” 

He shot her a look. One that clearly saw through her fake offense and honestly, _she_ didn’t even believe herself. 

First of all, Steve Rogers needed a PR agent like he needed a pair of boots for his hands. That is, PR to someone like him was completely superfluous to anything and everything he did. No one in the entire United States of America thought butter would melt in his mouth. He could do no wrong. He didn’t need Darcy to spin a story, because, by the nature of _him_ , it was already whirling when she got there. 

Secondly, he was a high profile client, which meant that Darcy often _had_ to go to him first, when her talents would be better spent on someone without as much public image baked right in. 

Like Wanda Maximoff, for instance. Or Clint, who kept falling off buildings and breaking things other than his ass or his leg. Just last week he’d fallen through an awning and decimated some little old married couple’s fruit stand at the Farmer’s Market. That was a real problem, but if Steve had shown up having sneezed in the Queen’s face on his last trip to the UK, then she’d have to handle that instead. He had priority. So, if he ‘fired’ her, removing himself from her docket, then that would kill two birds with one stone. 

There was only one problem. 

“How exactly are you going to do that?” she asked. “The Avengers are a package deal. If you fire me, then the others will have to drop me too. You know you guys are my biggest clients, right? I’m good at what I do, but if you guys drop me, that’s gonna really screw up my chances of landing any other big clients. Please tell me you’re not decimating my career because you want to eat spaghetti with me in Little Italy.” 

“I’m not decimating your career because I want to _feed_ you spaghetti in Little Italy,” he assured her. 

_Feed me spa-- oh Mylanta, be still my ovaries._

“Okay… so what’s the plan here, Chief? Because it kind of sounds like you don’t have one.” 

“Geez, you’re impatient,” he laughed, drumming his fingers on the arms of his chair. 

“Did you seriously just say ‘geez’ at me?” Darcy asked. 

“ _Fuck_ , you’re impatient,” he deadpanned, arching an eyebrow. “May I continue?” 

“Please.” She bounced her leg again, liking the way his eyes darted down to her shoe and back up again. 

“Great. So I talked to Director Fury and he said that as a member of the Avengers, it’s all or nothing. It’d bode well for us to have the same PR Agent. And hiring someone else into your firm to handle my account wouldn’t work either.” 

“No, it wouldn’t…” Darcy replied, nodding slowly. “I could have told you that, though.” 

He shot her another look, and continued. “But if I strike out on my own, I can hire whoever I want.” 

“Wait…” Darcy uncrossed her legs. “Don’t tell me you--” 

“Calm down, I’m not done. I didn’t do anything stupid.” 

“So you didn’t quit the Avengers?” 

“Oh yeah. I quit the Avengers.” 

“STEVEN,” Darcy gasped. “Take it back right now. I’m not the Yoko here. I refuse to allow you to--” 

“I _resigned_ , left Sam in charge, and he hired me back on as a consultant-slash-mercenary.” 

Darcy’s eyes bulged slightly. “STEVEN.” 

He continued, undeterred. “Which means I come back for every case they need, fight with them if they need me, and make the same amount of money I always did. The only difference is, I can hire my own PR Agent, and I regret to tell you that I didn’t go with Lewis Etc.” He shrugged in an overly-exaggerated display of contrition. “So I guess this is good-bye.” 

Darcy blinked a few times. “What now?” 

“I’m no longer your client, Ms. Lewis. And while I enjoy the professional time we had together, it must, unfortunately, come to an end. I’ll have to ask you to shred my contract.” 

“You want me to print out your contract and shred it, or just like… delete it from our files? Because everything is digital now, Gramps.” 

“Just get rid of it,” he said with a smirk. “Get rid of it, and come have lunch with me this afternoon.” 

Darcy wasted no time in deleting his file from her cloud and forwarding the concurrent information to Charles so he could pull up the necessary forms for Steve to sign. 

“You’ll need to go see Charles for the exit forms,” she said softly, pointing towards the door. “And I can’t answer the other half of your command until you do that.” 

When he got up to leave, Darcy let her eyes linger a bit on his retreating form, only letting out the breath she was holding when he left her office. 

She heard Charles make that noise again, but soon enough, Steve was back, knocking on her door. “Lunch?” 

“Get in here, you gigantic idiot,” she replied instead. “Lock that door behind you.” 

“Was that a yes to lunch?” he asked, grinning while doing exactly as she’d asked. 

“That was a _hell yes_ to lunch and a _get the fuck over here_ because I’ve got an hour before I can feasibly leave this office and absolutely no work to do.” 

“Pretty sure I can help with that,” Steve said, crossing the floor a bit too slowly for Darcy’s liking. 

“Help? You’re gonna need to do more than that.” She jumped up on her desk and reached for him, sliding her hand around the back of his neck and up into his hair. She closed her fingers around the freshly cut strands. They were so short that they slipped from her fingers, but he got the idea. He leaned down and wrapped one arm around her waist to hold her steady against him. He let her close what little distance there still was between them, but he definitely helped a little by hoisting her up onto her desk. 

She squeaked a little when he did it, but it ended up giving her that push she needed to press her lips to his. 

She’d lost a client this morning, but Darcy still felt like she was coming out on top. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all, gimme some sugar. I missed you guys!


End file.
